God did not come in peace

The Cortés Palace rises above the Cuernavaca streets with the solid walls of a building that means to stay for awhile.  Its varied history goes back to the earliest settlers of the area, the Tlahuicas, whose pyramid was razed by Cortes in 1522 to make room (and provide some building blocks) for his palace.  During its lifetime, the building has been a textile factory, a jail, and government offices.  It now houses a museum showing the history of Morelos and its people.       

 The museum does not mince words on the impact the Spaniards had on the locals.  Branding irons are displayed right next to North America's first modern public clock, which was imported from Europe and installed in a Cuernavaca church.  The concept of time was not the only divide between the Spanish and the local cultures; religion, and the Spanish determination to make the "New World" one for God and the Queen, led to to the destruction of local religious buildings and forced traditional beliefs to go underground, leading to an effect called sincretismo, which is why sheaves of wheat are carved in churches in Guatemala and the sun in Ecuador. 

        A Tlahuica poet in the 1500's wrote this poem:

                        

You say 

         that we do not know 

         the God of near and close

to whom belongs the sky and earth. 

       You say

  that 

  our gods are not the true gods.

         These are new words,

         those that you speak,

   and they disturb us, 

         they dismay us, 

         because our forefathers, 

         those who were, those who have lived here before, 

         did not speak to us like this. 

         They told us 

         that the rules of life, 

                         those that they held as true, 

    respected, 

   and honored the gods.

       (my trans. from Spanish) 

  

    Diego Rivera, the great Mexican muralist who also happened to be the husband of Frida Kahlo, channeled the angst of the 

Mexican indigenous people in his mural, which adorns an outer balcony area of the palace.  

    (See my photos with descriptions for more Palace coverage)